


The Cauldron, or: Horizon plot bunnies

by WyvernRider



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: From Hogwarts to the main game, Honestly just a way to get my fix of AUs, Multi, Plotbunnies, Pretty much just writting down ideas that pop into mid, To things that don't even have a description
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WyvernRider/pseuds/WyvernRider
Summary: A place for me to write down barely developed plot ideas for AUs, or maybe not, of my current favorite game. Each chapter will be an individual AU, and in case I write a continuation, it will be marked as such. Just don't expect me to very good at regularity, barely count as a functional person, so scheduling is way beyond me.





	1. In which Elisabet Sobeck has an uncanny feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elisabet Sobeck had a gut feeling that she followed when GAIA Prime was being built. Apparently, it paid of to do so.

Log Date: Zero Dawn plus one  
Once again Elisabet proves that she might as well be able to see into the future. We thought she was being paranoid when she insisted the mechanical override for the bunker door be on the inside of the bunker, and even more so when she had it worked in such a way that only GAIA could authorize someone to use it, but when the doors failed yesterday, it only proved her correct.  
The doors were meant to close with a seam of under 3 millimeters, any larger and the Faro Hoard would have found GAIA Prime. But thanks to the override, no one had to go out and re-engage the servoes when all they managed was 12 milimeters.  
———  
Log Date: Zero Dawn plus 2  
Even when I expected him to, Ted managed to let me down with his frankly unneeded and under thought ideas. I had to talk him out of not only of deleting Apollo from GAIA, something that would have undoubtedly make history repeat itself all the way back to before the agricultural revolution, but from trying to kill us all in a vacuum inside the bunker.  
Thankfully GAIA was listening and cut his access to the Prime bunker before he could do any damage.  
I haven’t really said this since before Ted went into weapon manufacturing, but I really think humanity will prosper after us.  
———  
Log date: Zero Dawn +9  
It took the Faro Plague a tad longer than we expected to burn itself out. I think all of us expected to be in cryo by now, but some of the more resilient species out there held on for a while. Mostly insects, and some fish.  
But now we’re finally doing the prep for going into the cryo chambers, to come out sometime after GAIA thinks humans are ready to walk the Earth again. I can only think about how they will develop.  
———  
Waking up from cryo feels even worse than waking up for 7 am classes, I swear.  
Right, log date: Zero Dawn +1000 years.  
Not even GAIA is totally sure how many exact days or years have gone by, since she really hasn’t needed a calendar, but apparently the kids, the people, from the cradle facilities have almost universally adopted a 28 day, 13 month calendar.  
GAIA herself has not made contact with any person unless it’s through APOLLO, and they manged to make a post-industrial society, somehow. HEPHAESTUS is just happy that his machines are mostly unharmed, although he has notably angry logs around the time a machine was created to deal with hunters, and another one to be purely pray.  
There was also a scare, in which HADES went active when he shouldn’t, but MINERVA took care of that before it was a real problem.  
———  
Log date:…Awakening +3.  
Yeah, Awakening will do for when we came out of cryo.  
Meeting your daughter, who is technically your clone, as she is accompanied by her extremely varied group of friends, at the same time you leave a bunker to the world outside, is nothing short of disorienting. GAIA explained how the situation came to be.  
Aloy Sobeck. If nothing else, a daughter I can be proud of. Smart, kind, clever, always trying to do right by others, to make the world a little better every day.  
I’m glad things went according to plan, that Zero Dawn was a success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one came to me pretty much in a dream after I finished the game. I imagined that people with APOLLO developed like a mix of the Carja and the Oseram, with technology being embraced and respected rather than shunned like the Nora, but family and community became the cornerstones of society anyway.


	2. In which Aloy reflects on things.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the crisis is over and the Sundom turns to rebuilding, Aloy takes some time to think on what has happened, and what will come in her future.

The sound of Oseram Machinery and Carja workers permeated Meridian nowadays. Aloy had first heard it when she had come back to the Sundom after finding Dr Sobeck, and she had become used to it after weeks of being woken by it, as well as lulled to sleep by it. The familiarity reminded Aloy somewhat of her earlier years, when the machines and the rustle of the trees filled the air regardless of time of day.

Shortly after the battle she had told everyone that the machines were not at fault, and that they should be treated as they had been before the entire HADES crisis. The fault laid entirely in Helis, and the Eclipse, for they had unleashed the demon that had wiped out the ancient ones. Thankfully Avad had backed her, as had Erend and Vanasha, and the Carja, Nora, and Oseram continued to treat machines as with the respect they deserved. She had also told them that they should watch how much they hunted for parts, but she was not very optimistic about it, so she had no doubt that HEPHAESTUS would continue to make more designs and machines capable of destroying countless numbers of hunters, herself notwithstanding.

Aloy had given Elisabet a proper burial, one she deserved to have, and not the one she had given herself. The armor stripped away, the focus she had carried now hanging from Aloy's neck, her body preserved by the seal in the armor, tight even after nearly a thousand years. She now lay among the other Alphas outside GAIA Prime, each with their own grave marker. Sadly, unlike Elisabet, their Focuses had been destroyed by whatever Faro had done to kill them. 

Now she only had her thoughts, and the metal flowers that were the last remnant of GAIA herself. The flowers now decorated her little home in Meridian, safe from the merchant who would have them only because they were beautiful, with Aloy who appreciated them not for their beauty, but for the fact that they represented Dr. Sobeck and her relationship to GAIA, from how they were designed to how they emerged, to the poems they contained within, in the text that only the focus could read.

The flowers helped her get up in the morning when it all seemed pointless, when the ghosts of the last year bore down on her and refused to let her sleep.

It was getting better now, whit Ikrie and Talanah and Erend and Vanasha and Avad all almost constant visitors to her house, all willing to hear her troubles and, in their own way, help her work through them. She had not taken Erend's offer after the first time, however, as it was too much an unpleasant feeling the day after.

For now she sat alone, however, considering, as she had many days and nights since the wake, Elisabet's focus.

She knew, for she had used it much the same, that it would contain some of Elisabet's, Aloy's mother's, thoughts, some of the things that were her normality before Ted Faro had sent humanity to the path of destruction, and after such.

She had long since hesitated, fearing that the image she had built of Elisabet, of a woman that worked and dedicated herself to the people, of a woman whose mind was only a tool to help others and not herself, a woman that, when presented with the apocalypse had planned for future generations to survive, of a woman that had been so altruistic that she had sacrificed herself so that the other alphas could live, that the image of mother of GAIA, would be false, and she would be even more flawed than Aloy herself.

But above all, she feared to find something that would signify Elisabet would not be proud of Aloy.

It was silly, she knew. Rost had been the one to raise her, and he had died with a smile on his face as she had escaped her first bout against Helis, and disappointing him was logically what she should be more wary of, but she had been raised a Nora, and the need for the approval of a Mother was something that she could not shake off, even if she had proclaimed herself to Aloy Despite the Nora to the face of the Matrons and all that took her for their anointed.

Aloy knew, from the recording her focus had recovered, that given how Aloy conducted her life in the last year, her...that Elisobet would not be anything other than proud, but the part of Aloy that was still a small child, wondering if, wherever or whoever her mother was, would love her. It was the part of Aloy that had started her down the path to take down HADES, but even as her quest had grown and her life changed and the part buried, it was very much at the core of the person that was Aloy.

But she was also a stubborn child. She was also a brave child, a kindhearted one, a strong one and a generous one. But above all, and perhaps most importantly, she was inquisitive by nature.

So really, the choice to look at what was inside the focus was made for her before she even found it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one I based in my third playthrough, the one I used pretty much to find all the lore and the data logs. I did not sell the flowers this time, as I had no need for the reward boxes. This is also how I imagine Aloy's story continues after the last cutscene of the game, the one where she finds Elisabet. (Truth be told, I cried as much the third time as I did the first time I saw it.)


	3. The modern fantasy chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is magic everywhere, even in the little things that almost no one notices. To Aloy, it only works to make her that much more in love with the world.

There was a certain quality to life everywhere.

Part of it was that no two people were ever the same. Talanah and Ikrie, despite sharing the same hobby, shone brightly in different colors, one a bright red that was tempered by the loss of family, yet retained the feeling of acceptance until they wronged her, the other a cool blue that spoke of the curiosity and enthusiasm to all things new and other, a beacon of adventuring promises.

Aloy could see it all.

It was something that she could not explain, nor could her mothers, as neither had been born with the ability, but to the young woman everything she saw was in two layers: one that everyone could see, that showed only how things looked and what they were for and what they did, that hid the true nature of things from others and that only some could ever hope to pierce through; the other, the hidden one, showed the secrets that hid in plain sight, the secrets that people did not want seen, that some went to great lengths to remove from the public.

When the gift had first shown itself to her, it had been jarring, she had been but a child when she had started seeing things that were not there, when the plants that made their home in the same place as her had started glowing different colors, matching only in how each color felt, but not even the plants that were of the same species were of the same hue, differing in a way that she was barely able to tell them apart. Some looked older, others more worn despite being younger in feel, and she had even been able to know when one was near to dying, seeing the dull color days before the first leaf fell. It had been something her mothers had worried over, but after a few weeks, when it proved to be nothing that needed concern, they had accepted it as an oddity that would be with Aloy for however long, and since then it had only proved useful time after time and time again.

Now she had enough discipline to ignore it when she didn't need it, and to use it to its fullest when she did. It was a practice born of nearly two decades of the quirk of the eye being there, and now she knew that without it she would be crippled, her most useful tool in everyday life gone.

But it was not the fact that it helped her find lost things, or track down her friends when they didn't need but wanted to be alone, or that she could always make the little critters and animals come to her with little effort, that made her quirk the best possible thing that could have happened to her.

No, it was that with it she could see how everyone, from the strangers she had only ever seen once, to the mothers that had raised her, to the park hermit that had been an example of conduct and altruism, was connected to each other. She could see the love her mothers held for one another, she could she how her friends, originally only friends to her, formed a tight group that would fight for each other, how Rost the Park Hermit held a very thick connection to the land where he lived and to everyone that visited his park.

It allowed her to see the good in everyone one, just as it allowed her to see who did not have any good. The difference was always in the feel of their colors and how they were bound to others.

Friendships and relationships, the healthy kind, were thick to both ends. The unhealthy ones looked sickly and were usually barely hanging on from one side. Crushes went out from someone but didn't attach somewhere else, while people just starting dating were thin connections.

Bosses were connected to all their employees, with grips of different kinds at different levels. Cops always loomed ready to go at whoever passed them, while firemen and medics reached out to try and cover everyone.

It was only a shame that others could not see the world as she did. Aloy was sure that it would be a much kinder world if they could.

But even so, the world was beautiful, it just took a bit of focus to see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is an idea that popped into mind with little warning, one of those thoughts that decide to hit you out of nowhere. Usually I say no to those thoughts, but this one stuck for a while, so I decided to do something with it. I may actually come to back to this idea for a future chapter, maybe.


	4. The BNHA that no one asked for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quirks happened, and heroes and villains became mainstream overnight. Most children, and even some adults wanted to be heroes, but then, Aloy is not really like everyone else, is she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This had to happen eventually. And inspiration for it finally hit me with the new season coming out, so enjoy

A strange mutation gave birth to a new step in human evolution. Quirks they were eventually called, but not all quirks happened at the same time, and some were seen a lot faster on people than others.

Mutations were the first type to be acknowledged, hard not to when people were suddenly showing up with oddly shaped pupils, skins of a color that wasn't a standard, horns on their head, or hair made of rocks or other things. Then were the transformation types, people grew overnight into bodies too tall to be normal, only to shrink after a moment of panic, or maybe they shrunk and could not turn back until they reasoned out the change and how to turn back. Emitter types, the most common nowadays, were the last to be identified, as people started breathing out fire, or causing shocks by focusing on something too hard.

Society had changed overnight. People panicked, the quirkless wanting rules to prevent themselves from being harmed by others, and the ones with quirks not wanting to give up any inch of whatever power they had. It was from this change that villains sprung up, people that terrorized others because they wanted to feel powerful, to be the strongest and only power in the world, and from their shadow emerged heroes, who used their power to protect others, to prevent the world from falling into disastrous chaos and murder.

Laws were made, regulations were put into place, and suddenly the government started sponsoring the heroes, and thus a career unlike any before it was born. Schools were opened, modified and adapted to the world order, and so generation after generation of defenders of peace kept springing up, even as hordes of villains kept comming.

The common man fell to the side, and fields ranging from engineering to medicine to plumbing and building struggled to keep up with the changes, as some quirks made them obsolete. Some could not keep up, and were stuck playing catch up.

Centuries after quirks first emerged, with over 80% of the population having one, and hero work being the main source of income for many, little Aloy Sobeck was born of Dr. Elisabet Sobeck and the Nature Hero Gaia.

Dr. Sobeck was the scientific mind behind Hero Agency Zero Dawn, her innovations giving the edge to every hero and sidekick employed under the banner, and her quirk, Oversight, allowed her to think not only a lot faster, but a lot further than the average person could, to the point that even the world renown Sir Nighteye had trusted her predictions, even if his own were much more accurate. Her quirk, however, needed information to make predictions, and so she made sure to always, at all times, stay more than just up to date of the world news.

The Nature Hero Gaia, on the other hand, was to most an enigma, having helped create a hero agency. Not much was known about her other than her quirk's name: Nature's Communion. Whenever she was deployed, life sprang up healthier and stronger than before she was there, from plants to humans and everything in between. Even if her quirk was not a healer's one, everyone felt better being in her presence, from how she behaved as if she knew everything would be alright, to how she moved and spoke with a confidence that spoke of wisdom beyond her days. Animals heeded her requests, and people hung from her every word.

One could easily say that Aloy had had a good childhood. This much was true. Her mothers were doting, and what little she had wanted was given to her as long as she could properly reason it out with them. How she would care for a pet, how she would maintain her electronics, how she wouldn't take a apart something to look at how it worked. Granted, that last one was a hard one to deal with, as she was very much a curious girl, but even then, what she took apart was overlooked as justified for her need to learn. Little did she destroy that was not put back together when she was done learning the ins and outs of it.

Yes her childhood was good, but lonely. Few wanted to approach the daughter of Gaia, and nearly none of those that did approach her wanted to get to know Aloy, only the daughter of a world class hero. Few were the friends she had, and thus, she cherished them more than anything.

Aloy did not resent her mothers for her loneliness, no, that was fully the fault of those that wanted to shine off of the brilliance of others, and she made sure that they knew that.

As a child, Aloy had wanted to be a hero like Gaia, wanted people to recognize her for herself. As she grew up and the mysteries of the world opened themselves to her, she had wanted to be a scientist like her mother. It was only really her school pushing her to the limit, well, more like her friends pushing her, but still, it was only thanks to that that she was now standing outside the gates of one of the most prestigious hero schools in the US, having just graduated from the program.

To her right stood Ikrie and Talanah, her two best friends and the other two members of the Hero Trio Birds of Pray. Hawk, Thrush, and Owl were their names. To her left were Erend; Hero Name Vanguard, and Petra; code name Forgewoman, and responsible for many of the upgrades that the Birds of Prey's equipment had. Far in front of them was Avad, Hero name Sunking, whose claim to fame was him handing over his criminal father over to the authorities before being accepted to the academy, giving a speech to those gathered for the ceremony.

Aloy's journey as a hero had started when she had first met Talanah. Another hero's daughter, Talanah had approached her a few months before the two had started the course, or well, the two had met up by chance and a friendship had developed from there. Together the two had pushed against what others had expected of them, helping each other grow beyond expectations, to the point that the reason they weren't giving the speech for the graduation was because neither of them wanted the attention it would bring them. Avad was a both a good choice, and someone that did not care about being on the spotlight, even if they didn't always see eye to eye with each other.

The third member of the crew, Ikrie, was pretty much an orphan. Her parents had abandoned her when young, and the foster family she had belonged to was nothing short of neglectful, the only thing they cared about being power and the ability to stay on top and survive there. With her quirk, Ice Sling, it was pretty much defined from her birth that she would go down the hero path, not that she minded, as she rather enjoyed the hunt for villains. Once, when she had been injured in a training exercise of her family, she had met Aloy, who helped her back to civilization proper, and from then the three had been inseparable.

Homing, Focus, and Ice Sling; Hawk, Thrush, and Owl.

When in combat, Aloy was the support, pointing out weaknesses, strengths and giving strategies for the situation, Talanah was the attacker, her quirk making arrows that would always meet a target, and Ikrie was the defense, freezing whoever got too close to their group, and sometimes even further than that. On their own, their combat capabilities were impressive, capable of taking crowds out by themselves, but together, there was little to stop them. Their teachers had seen this, they had seen this, and the world would see it. It was only a matter of time.

Erend was, however, Aloy's first true friend. A friendship born from the ashes of combat. The two of them had first fought together when Erend's sister was kidnapped, barely managing to stop the attempt in time. The hero in training Vanguard, whose name Erend had taken as a torch passed down, had been a target for some villains, and it was only a few years after that that the stress of it had gotten to her and she had given up the name, vanishing from the public eye, only three years into her career. Only Avad and Erend saw her regularly nowadays.

There was an absent member of the group too, but Vala's presence, while gone, was felt by every one of them.

Perhaps that was why Aloy had been so determined during her last year. Vala had been a great friend, pushing the limits just that much further for all of them, and to have her flame, one of the brightest of a generation, be snuffed out by a rampaging maniac that left only three people alive in a building of nearly a hundred...

It was something that had affected them all, and Aloy had already vowed to see the one responsible brought to justice.

And as she looked at the horizon, she couldn't help but think of what would come.


	5. The coffee corner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A modern AU with Aloy wondering about her place in the world. You know, usual college student things.

The coffee shot was usually quiet. It was not a popular one, like the chain shops that her mother preferred, simply because they were faster and she was a woman that valued her time above everything. It was a hole in the wall that served good coffee, had a good atmosphere and was far enough away from both college and main avenues, so the only noise that one could hear were those of the clients that were inside the shop, and the occasional person coming or going.

A sip of coffee, a costumer leaving, a barista cleaning.

She would usually be here with a friend, the only way to catch up with all the different schedules and the exams and all that. Not today though. Today she was here by herself, having told no one that she would be there, to enjoy the company of her own mind, and figure out some things. Things that she really needed to figure out before she left to leave her mark on the world.

Rost, the man that had, by his own admission, left his life behind, apparently insulting his family such that there was sadness and bitterness whenever he spoke of them (And he was sure they spoke not of him), had long ago told her that it was down to every person to be what they wanted to be, and that when someone else was in the way of it then it was time to lose them. Granted, the man was the type that literally went around his problems to solve them, as in, he found the most roundabout way to solve it, usually to great success.

Problem was, Aloy couldn't really get rid of the problem without a lot of thought.

It was strange, she was usually the type that did things, much like the ones that raised her, she usually thought about consequences in the short term, sometimes even as far as a year, but now she was facing something that had consequences long past what she usually thought of.

It was hard, sometimes, to find her way in the world. Really hard, but she had managed, and she would keep managing, she hoped.

A sip from her mug, the bell on the door, the espresso machine working.

Aloy did not second guess herself often. The last tie she had done such a thing, Gaia had stopped her from doing something that would have left her childhood bully in her dust. Never since had she thought twice about something that she had already convince herself to do. She thought things through, she decided on a course of action, and did the things she said she would.

Aloy really didn't know what to do.

She really didn't like that feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one, but there'll be another one soon, as in, before next week soon, so look forward to that.


	6. The actual coffee shop AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how you do a themed week

The coffee shop was always busy.

The students came and went all day, since the coffee sold was both cheap, for the general student, heavy in caffeine, for the people that did not sleep, and tasty, which really appealed to everyone. Business people also entered the coffee shop, but they were a lot more uncommon than students, since they only stopped by during the lunch rush, even if the food that they served was less tasty than the coffee they brewed. But then, Aloy tended to the counter and not to the kitchen, so she couldn't really say much about the cooking.

Staying in your station, everyone said it was.

The coffee shop was always busy.

Aloy wouldn't tell anyone other than the people in question, but she did have favorite costumers. Most of the people that came and went never left much of an impression on Aloy, other than the ones that she helped with some of their problems, and even then, after their large tip to her for the advice, they only nodded to her and didn't really attempt to cement themselves to her. Not that she minded, she was a private person by nature. She wouldn't go as far as to say that she was an introvert, but she definitely was out of her depth when it came to most social interactions. She held her friends in very high regard, and very close to her, since she didn't have a lot.

"One cinnamon latte coming right up," Aloy didn't even need to ask Ikrie what she wanted when she sat down on the counter, she knew her friend's order by heart no, so often she had ordered it, "How's your week been? Haven't see you in here for a while." She asked while going about preparing the order.

  
"Yes well, turns out opening a branch of The Lodge takes a lot longer than my mentor led me to believe," The Lodge, short for The Hunter's Lodge, to which both Aloy and Ikrie belonged to, was a somewhat exclusive society based around tests of skills that few managed to become fully fledged members of, even if it had a lot more casual members. Being a member was highly prestigious, and even not having a high title was enough to open plenty doors.

Aloy couldn't really care less about the prestige. It had its uses, but she was happy where she was.

"Good luck with that then."

Ikrie smiled her bright smile that Aloy loved seeing and went to work on her phone, thanking her when she placed the latte in front of her, but otherwise not playing attention to what was going on around her.

Ikrie was the one that came more often to the cafe, and a close second was Erend.

"And an Irish coffee for the security expert," Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. "Any news from our favorite politician? Avad has been incommunicado for a while." Avad, of course, was the one person that Aloy saw the least of. Erend was his head of security, after his sister had retired when Avad offered her marriage. Since he worked in the government, he saw little of the outside world, but it never stopped him from enjoying the company of people that others would say were way under his station. Then again, even with all the complaints, he had one of the highest approval ratings in town, so he was doing something right.

"He's working hard. Too hard if Ersa's to be believed. I've seen it, so I'm inclined to agree."

The coffee shop was always busy.

Ikrie and Erend left, and even so Aloy had plenty to brew for all the costumers.

Talanah, Vanasha, her mothers, Petra, Nil surprisingly enough, Varl and Vala. All her costumers at one point, all people she was close to, all walking out satisfied with what they had drank, and all had an order that Aloy knew by memory.

It might not be the most appreciated of jobs, but she liked it and she did it well. After all, the Zero Dawn Coffee Shop was hers, and by god if she wasn't proud of it.


End file.
